SMELLS LIKE IT, TASTES LIKE IT, SURE GLAD WE DIDN’T STEP IN IT

SMELLS LIKE IT, TASTES LIKE IT, SURE GLAD WE DIDN’T STEP IN IT: The drivel of an uninformed populace is always good for a cantankerous curmudgeonly laugh as we said a while back.

But these doggie debaters are dead serious in their solemnity making them all the more entertaining.

The factoids and what can only be described as opinionoids at Mel Rapozo’s blog continue to mount and if you’re not among the blithering blatherous you’d better not get anywhere near the hysterical at the Historic County Building next Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. for the official public hearings on three “dog path” bills- three bills which no one seems to have actually read.

In fact we haven’t read the full bills because Council Services prefers to waste reams of paper (and gasoline to pick them up) by not posting them on line... along with a lack of the Kaua`i County Code (KCC) that the bills are intended to amend.

And if we only read the agenda at the County web site no one would know what the three bills are about except that one is about “Parks and Recreation”, another is about “stray dogs” and a third is about the creation of “dog parks”.

But a look at the actual published legal notices shows what’s really going on- and that apparently no one posting one of the 190 comments on the subject at Mel’s blog has even has a rain check for a clue.

The first thing we found in the brief public notices is that we were right all along- people cannot currently be ticketed for having dogs on the bike path because, although dogs are banned from “County Parks”, the bike path is not a park- at lest not unless one of the proposed bills actually passes.

How do we know? Did Rapozo actually answer our numerous queries as he promised?

Are you kidding? No. One of the news bills, #2265 is actually proposed in order to make the path a park where dogs would be illegal and then at the same time it would allow dogs on/in the path/park.

It says:

Bill #2265: This Bill proposes to amend (Chapter 19 KCC 1987) related to Parks and Recreation by adding the definition of “Shared-use Path system” and a provision to allow leashed dogs on the county’s shared use path system.

Note how it says “by adding the definition” meaning it is not now part of the KCC.

So let’s get this straight. Right now the path is not a “park”- where dogs are banned by ordinance- as we insisted from day one but could not get any government official claiming it was a park to prove otherwise... because they were lying through their teeth when some said to the press that it was already “considered a linear park” and the local paper refused to get the facts straight despite our queries

Therefore no tickets issued to date for walking your dog there is valid at this point in time.

So dogs are legal on the path now and we have a bill to propose “making” them legal on the path by first making them illegal by officially defining the path as a park and in the same breath making them legal by a magnanimous gesture of our esteemed geniuses on the County Council.

Only on Kaua`i – and only in an election year- do we pass new laws to maintain the legal status quo.

Well at least those who thought walking dogs on the bike path was illegal and wanted to make it legal, those who thought it was legal and wanted it to be illegal and those who thought it was either illegal or legal and wanted to keep whichever way they thought the law read can now be put into two categories instead of four.. as long as the bill’s final; version does both make it illegal and then re-legalize it.

Clear as the uncleaned path’s runoff into the nearby ocean after a rain?

But the second bill is not only more revealing but even more absurd because it turns out that, although there is a leash law on Kaua`i there is no anti-dog poop law.

Again, right now, legally, there is no law against your dog taking a dump anywhere it’s allowed to be as long as it’s on a leash. Despite any and all claims that it is illegal for your dogs to poop anywhere and everywhere it isn’t.... yet.

The bill has two part. The first changes the length of required leashes from eight to six feet. But the second change reads as follows in the legal notice for the public hearing:

Bill # 2266... Adds a new section 22 2.5 “Nuisances Committed by Dogs” which makes it illegal for dog owners to allow dogs to defecate on public and private property and to require dog owners to have some kind of implement or device to pick up any waste deposited by their dog.

Note again that it “adds a new section” so there is no section on picking up after Fido to be amended right now, as has been claimed by loudmouth ignoramuses both public and County-employed

What genius wrote that public notice and presumably the new proposed ordinance?

Can a dog “commit” a nuisance? For that matter can anyone or anything? Don’t people “create” a nuisance and “commit” a crime stemming from the “creation” of that nuisance? And how exactly does a dog defecate on public “AND” (as opposed to “or”) private property? Does it look for the public-private property line and lay one directly on the line? Or possibly by walking from public to private property while depositing a long one using a moving version of Senator Larry Craig’s “wide stance”?

Scatological humor aside this bill would make it illegal- that is it would if it were written by someone with a little more brains than the dogs whose digestive processes it intends to regulate- not to carry around your pooper scooper and act out the that scene that, if dogs could laugh, would leave them rolling over without being commanded to do so.

We just can’t wait to see the caravan of K9-kukae-carnival in the Council’s Chamber-pot next week with messes both opinion-based and possibly of the stinky kine if people bring their pooches to the meeting as many have pledged to do.

It all begs a variation on the ancient philosophical question: If a real dog turd falls at a Council meeting about dog turds, first, is it a legal turd, and then will anyone hear about or smell it or clean it up, what with all the figurative feces that are expected to fly.

THE SLEEPING DOG ALSO LIES

THE SLEEPING DOG ALSO LIES: It’s apparently all quiet on the northern front.

And despite the mysterious disappearance of the fence around the Ha`ena graveyard and wished-for luxury house site, the contractor is no longer kow-towing to the evil Walton Hong and trying to do the dirty work of mainland nut case Joe Brescia.

And entertainer Lady Ipo seems to have been properly shamed to tears and out of trying to bless the desecration of her own kanaka maoli culture... without the intervention of her famous daughter UH-Hilo Professor and Hoku Award winning performer Kainani Kahaunaele or son-in-law "Eddie" Ayau of Hui Malama, who infuriated the Bishop Museum and western judges by returning burial artifacts to their rightful place of internment on the Big Island a year or so ago.

But the most impressive thing here may have been the way new chief Darryl Perry and his all new machine-gun-gripping, riot-gear regaled, taser-toting, men-in black seem to have given the aloha-kine KPD we all knew and loved the opportunity to do what we have come to expect from them when dealing with non-violent citizens standing up for their rights- they drove by, made sure no one was threatening anyone or getting crazy gave ‘um all a big shaka and went back to doing their real jobs.

Could it be that the Chief has learned something in the last week or so? Could it be that seeking to de-fuse rather than ramp up the separation between protectors and the protected was, is and will always be the best way for Kauai’s Finest to act?

We sure hope so. Because people haven’t forgotten how Perry came to this job and the utter corruption and dirty deeds that led to his hiring.

We’ll be hearing a lot more about that “old” story that has until now been told in dribs and drabs when a new book by former The Garden Island and Honolulu Star Bulletin reporter Anthony Sommer's hits the shelves later this month telling the tale we’ve all wanted to hear in documented detail.

For today, well let a recent letter from Council watchdog Glenn Mickens to Councilman Ron Kochi tease you a little with some dredging up of some gone-by-but-not-forgotten reminders of the skullduggery and railroading of the last two chiefs, a past Police Commission chair who tried stand up to them and the fight by another commissioner who did fight them off.... all perpetuated by a crop of dirty dealers still in power today who engineered the foul feat.

Look for more on Sommer's new book in this space in the coming weeks and months and- we hope- some enticing excerpts preceding Tony’s return to Kaua`i with tome-in-hand later this summer.

Now, heeeere’s Glenn.


Aloha Ron:

Having heard your story about Joy asking that cop on Oahu for directions to the ball park (I think that is what you said) I had to put in my two cents.

You said that the cop told Joy how much they missed Perry and what a great person and cop he was.

For your informational purposes ( I am not sure how much you followed the Chief Lum story) I have to bring something up. I followed this whole Lum story from the get go as did a lot of other people on Kauai and, Ron, when the whole truth comes out you are going to see one of the biggest conspiracy stories that has even been exposed on Kauai.

Obviously I think the world of KC---he is an honest, dedicated person and was doing his job as our police chief. When the 3 finalist came down to being our Chief (Lum and Perry were the main ones) the police commission, made up of 5 people, voted 4 to 1 to make KC the Chief. I know that Perry wanted that job and certain other "questionable" people wanted him to have it too but keep remembering that the Commission has the sole authority under our Charter to appoint and to fire the Chief. Only Leon voted against Lum but remember that he has some racial problem with KC and his negative vote was understandable.

I won't go into the whole conspiracy theory because you may be familiar with most of it. BUT remember that Carol Furtado, who even grew up with Perry VOTED FOR LUM and she knew more about Perry than anyone else!!!

So , the powers that be went after Lum in the biggest way they could. They got Mike Ching to resign (he was and is a well respected member of the north shore community and was on the commission for 6 years), the Mayor first said that Gonsalves should go after Leon came up with the racial slur and then he flip flopped and said he should stay; they went after Carol and put her through the ringer but she defended herself and proved any charges against her to be false; then they went after Ron Vennaman who, if you ever read his bio sheet knows more about policing than probably anyone on Kauai or, even in Hawaii and he was passed over for acting chief by some weird in house methods.

And, Ron, the BIGGEST allegation that they went after KC about was his "forgery" of a 3 page document. This "forgery" was a fax error and KC's law firm fully took responsibility for the error. But, even worse, to make the case for this conspiracy to get KC fired or to retire Kaipo put on this "dog and pony show" on June 15th, 2006 "showing" over and over by a power point how this 3 page document had been forged. All members of the council except JoAnn who was absent chimed in with the forgery theory.

Now the kicker, Ron. On June 13 KC sent an E Mail to Peter Nakamura showing him how the Fax error was made ( I believe that he CC'd Gary Hue and other relevant parties). Peter sent him back an E Mail confirming that he got the message.

SO, that means that by the 14th of June Kaipo and the entire council KNEW about the fax error and YET he and the members went before the camera and made KC look like a forger!!!! I believe it was about 6 months later that the AG refused to enter any further investigations and regretfully the Garden Island didn't make a big story out of it which it was!!

Then the AG going into KC's house and confiscating all his computer material looking for evidence of the "forgery" which somewhere down the road will put a huge settlement in KC's hands. There was so much hanky panky going on with this conspiracy and it didn't take a genius to connect the dots.

Back to my point, Ron. KC was doing the job the commissioners appointed him to do. Crime was down, drug busts were up and he reorganized some questionable members of the vice squad to other positions and had Vennaman as his top aid. Once money was being drained from the drug dealers pockets something had to give and, for me, KC was the key person that had to go.

I don't know that much about Perry but I do know that he wanted that job but the best, most qualified person got it and now Perry is back so, for me, question marks have to remain.

Tony Sommer has written a book about this conspiracy and I am waiting to get a copy of it.

For what they are worth, these are my opinions, Ron.

Take two and hit to right!!

Glenn

AND YOU GET ALL THOSE MEATY BY-PRODUCTS TOO:

AND YOU GET ALL THOSE MEATY BY-PRODUCTS TOO: The talk of the town today is a piece- we won’t say a piece of what- in Hawai`i Business Magazine headlined “Something’s Happening Here” written by 2006 Excellence in Journalism Award winner Scott Radway.

But the only award Scott could hope win for this one would be for parachute journalism- and that presumably if he lied and said he had come to Kaua`i for the undatelined story.

If he did do the drop-in, it didn’t show. Radway’s telephone and email skills are lackluster as is his lack of depth in describing “A string of controversies on Kauai is changing the way people do business” as the article’s sub-head states.

Unwittingly Radway dishes more of exactly what people on Kaua`i are fed up with- current day lunas seeking to reestablish plantation mentality claiming a silent majority of cowed, plantation lackeys they wish still existed and proposing more dog and pony shows to try to keep us the way we were.

He quotes every business mouthpiece and hack around- the kinds of BS artists who are as out of touch as they could be. The story is based on quotes from the following, all trying to tell Radway what the common people are thinking:

-Long-time County biz-shill Beth Tokioka,

-Top-tourism promoter Sue Kanoho,

-Future Lunas of Kaua`i wannabe and current Kauai Chamber of Commerce (CofC) President Randall Francisco,

-CofC Chair Joy Miura Koerte who doubles in the daytime doing the usual public relations slime-work at Fujita & Miura,

-Randy Hee, the top apologist and good old boys at KIUC, the “co-op” electric company,

-Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura who chairs the “how-far-should-we-bend-over”, “how much money ya got” and “where-do-you-want-to-put-it” Planning Committee and

-Hizdishonah Mayor Bryan Baptiste who, if he had a dollar, a day and a brain he would still be two short of each.

They all do their best to tell investors and developers that, not to worry, people here are so dumb and snowed you actually can take a dump on Kaua`i people as long as you make believe you asked them first.

The article starts with some of the usual Oahu-centric myths about the Superferry which now includes apparently charges of “vandalism of vehicles” during the first attempted docking of the hated harbinger in the harbor, replete with snide comments about the protesters from Kanoho.

Radway starts with an insincere derision of the world’s view of Kauai’s Hobson’s Choice with statement “Outside of Kauai, people could not help but ask whether the Garden Island was officially antibusiness? In a series of in-depth interviews, Kauai leaders emphatically stated that’s not the case, it’s far more complex than anything so black and white”.

But then he goes on to find out how that anti-business attitude can be overcome by smart PR and proper subjugation of the populace.

When Radway quotes CofC’s PR Queen Koerte as saying “(t)here are a lot of frustrations that cannot be left un-addressed. We need to really take the time to figure out where we are going and how we are going to get there”, there’s not much doubt about where “there” is- ramming big-money backed development down our throats but sugar coating it enough to not make us gag too much... and making it seem like we asked for that sweet turd on our plate in the first place

He quotes Tokioka, the County’s top development enabler with the past two “never met a hotel they didn’t like” administrations, as saying “(t)here is a heightened awareness of anything that might impact our quality of life. Processes are not easy on Kauai right now.”

That’s right- beware developers- it’s so bad out there you’d better schmooze and pay off people with millions set aside to grease the skids if you want to put your money suction machine wherever you want.

The article mentions some horrifying stats from the Kauai Planning & Action Alliance (KPAA) about how bad living condition for the workforce are on Kaua`i and praises the overdevelopers in Po`ipu and their fully ineffective “Dust Management Hui” which swept under the rug the issue if not the dust from a dozen simultaneous projects.

But painfully obvious in it’s omission is any possibility that your new gated golf course, resort and luxury home project might be the wrong fit for an island littered with them (and more already zoned), rather intimating it’s all a matter of presentation and not getting people so pissed off they block the harbor or threaten to burn it down when you sue to “get ‘er done”.

And talk about audacity. The articles says that Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura criticized the lack of implementation of the General Plan by the administration, and

“says instead Kauai often manages growth by reactionary measures such as a laundry list of approval conditions and at times, litigation. “One thousand conditions is not the answer,” she says. “You have to address the issue before it becomes a controversy.”

These words come from Ms. Sell-Out herself. Yukimura came back to politics after being credited with stopping the 1000 acre Kukui`ula resort, luxury home and golf course project as a citizen and then turned around after re-election and guided it through a contentious Council rezoning process toward approval.

And she says she did so because she got those “one thousand conditions” mostly so inconsequential and totally insufficient that they could and will never come close to paying for the county services impacts. The major “conditions” included a school no one (including the BOE) wants or needs, “workforce” housing that is so restrictive and expensive no one will want it and the road that runs through and serves the subdivision (and turns a quiet dead end road to Spouting Horn into a superhighway) but includes no other provision for roads to support the thousands of rich mainlanders who are going to overpopulate it and Po`ipu.

After some typical “huh??” words from Baptiste about how it’s not really a problem he created despite his administration’s lack of implementation of the General Plan and a Planning Department with a notorious revolving door to the remnants of the plantations at Grove Farm, Gay and Robinson and others the other CofC honcho Francisco does the dirty work of trying to divide Kauaiians by race and claiming the people here basically know their place and it’s a handful of outside rabble rousers stopping development

According to Radway, Francisco:

“acknowledges there is definitely an undercurrent of cultural division contributing to divisiveness.”

“I think people felt embarrassed,” Francisco says, referring to the Superferry protests. “We as people of Hawaii and Kauai, most of us came from a plantation community. That multicultural upbringing gives us our identity and sometimes for newcomers, there is a disconnect.”

”Francisco continues that, in plantation culture, where everyone was so interdependent, you didn’t always express your opinion so negatively, so publically(sic). “Sometimes how we use language, verbal and nonverbal, is the Red Sea that divides us. I don’t fault newcomers, because they don’t share that experience, but the majority of the community does have that as a reference point.”

Ah the good old days when the darkies on the plantation “no like say nahting” and if one of them looked the wrong way at the head of the CofC they were jobless, homeless and blacklisted before the sun when down.

Then Koerte cracked massah’s whip again saying:

“With a lot of issues, there is a silent majority, made up of a lot of local people, born and raised here. They do have the same interests and they do want to preserve our community our culture, our unique social fabric, but really weren’t against the Superferry and understand why the monkeypod trees have to come out,” says Koerte.

“A lot of the longtime people experience the shutdown of the plantations. They understand something has to come in so there are jobs and their children can return, can come home for work,” she says. “They understand something has to happen for us to progress and compete in a global marketplace. They are people who have experienced downturns.”

Yeah how’s that workin’ out for ya after following that scheme for the 50 years since most of the plantations closed?

We all know how-- with more hotel plantations giving our kids the opportunity to have six jobs each cleaning rich people’s toilets with their tongues at starvation wages while the ultra rich move in next door or put in a vacation rental driving our taxes through the roof and making housing cost more than Tokyo as the working poor on Kaua`i slide down the razor blade of life while the pols create “for sale” affordable housing at a price just out of the reach of anyone who needs it so the rich end up getting a cheap deal when we can’t even afford or find a rental unit.

Tokioka then takes it home with the advice that it isn’t really about how bad the project is, how it will hurt the community, how it will continue the hopelessness of most local families or dash the hope that they will ever get any sleep before the kids leave home.

It’s all about how you sell it to the plantation-whipped plebes.

From the article:

“There is always a concern in business in trying to get something done quickly or efficiently, but I think where we are as an island, it is probably better to take more time and in some cases, a lot more time, and take the input and get buy-in,” Tokioka says. “So you have success at the back-end.”

Is the Superferry a good example of the opposite approach?“

Hindsight is always much easier, but clearly that project is not moving forward as planned,” she says. “You really can’t rush things here. It is better to take a little time and do your due diligence and come out with a better product, embraced by a greater segment of the community.”

Francisco puts on the capper that puts us in the crapper:

“Kauai is not antidevelopment. This is a place with tremendous heart and aloha. People want to know you’re genuine, your intentions are good and if the community is taken care of, the business will succeed.”

Sincerity is important and, as they say, if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

You bet there’s something happening here Scott- and what it is is all too clear to us if not you or your readers.

BURYING THE BONE OF CONTENTION

BURYING THE BONE OF CONTENTION:Dr. Ray Chuan used to say he probably knew more about garbage any other nuclear physicist because it’s the Rosetta Stone of incompetence and corruption in Kaua`i County government and the Department of Public Waste- er, Works- which, guided by the pols that ignore their scams, literally can’t seem to crap or get off the pot..

That was in the 90’s after years of yack-yack-yack- about the yuck yuck yuckiest of all subjects- solid waste.

At the time our landfill was full, we had paid for another useless R.W. Beck study on what to do with it all and people were proposing trash-to-energy projects, recycling and stream separation and the pressing need to open a new dump.

And 15 years later nothing has changed except that we have a third Beck report and Kekaha’s Mount `Opala is getting higher every day.

Beck is a company stuck in the middle ages of solid waste consulting. Their ideas always come down to incrementally more recycling and a new landfill- the latter being the words that strike fear in the hearts of politicians worldwide but especially on little tiny Kaua`i-. oh and maybe an incinerator.

But the national trend in solid waste across the nation is a concept called “Zero-Waste” (ZW) and we actually have a Zero Waste-Kaua`i (ZWK) group that sometimes feels like it’s talking to the wall- the wall resulting from a presentation to the Council from professional Zero-Waste consultants who had instituted ZW systems across the mainland. It was met with enthusiasm for all of five minutes before the Council went back to Beck for the same old same old.

As the consultants say ZW is really “almost” zero because even with a mandatory curbside recycling combined with a facility that sorts the rest of the trash stream into recyclables, reusables, green waste/compost and all the other components there is still going to be a small amount- some say 5-10%, some say even less is practically achievable - that is going to be an unsortable disgusting mess, although with developing technologies it can and will approach zero.

And even if we burn that last tiny amount in an incinerator (an unnecessary and costly process usually sold to the public as a waste-to-energy plant such as H-Power in Honolulu) we’d have to do something with the “ashes”.

If the Council and County had contracted with a Zero Waste consultant we could now have a useful plan. To be fair the Beck report does include many of the recycling and sorting proposals and some on the Council have stated that having a “MERF”- the sorting facility- is their top solid waste priority. But it is still the old “coordinated” or piecemeal approach that was popular in the 80’s but has seen it’s day.

So if we did go with the Zero Waste concepts we’d still have a little bit left and the question is what to do with that.

We really have two choices on what to do with it- bury it or send it back to where it came from.

Which is why it’s unfathomable that our top two protectors of the environment in Hawai`i are condemning the smartest and most sustainable plan for that last little bit – ship it out.

According to an article in Monday’s Honolulu Advertiser Director of the Hawai`i Sierra Club Jeff Mikulina apparently has it backward in saying "(s)hipping off trash is an absolute waste. There is this overarching environmental ethic about the trash that we produce. It's antithetical to ... taking care of our own to send our 'opala thousands of miles away. We have to deal with our problems here at home."

This argument ignores the one pertinent fact- 100% of the materials in our non-greenwaste and mined (such as gravel, sand or concrete materials, all of which is recyclable) waste stream originated elsewhere- most of it on the mainland.

Another tireless environmental defender Henry Curtis of Life of the Land apparently agrees saying in the article "(w)e have to support an intensive recycling program. If material has to be disposed of, Life of the Land strongly believes that it should be done in a way that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions. Exporting trash to a large and cheap Mainland landfill is not the answer."

Shipping it out is not an alternative to recycling and it’s a disingenuous straw man to argue such. As is the greenhouse gas argument. How much greenhouse gas is produced by the diesel trucks running back and forth to and over the current landfills Henry?

If the answer is not a cheap Mainland landfill is it a more expensive and energy wasteful bunch of local ones?

The article notes “(o)thers say that the exporting of trash to another state absolves citizens of the responsibility for cleaning up after themselves.”

Exactly what citizen responsibility is that? To import pre-disposal-stage waste and then dig a hole to throw it in? Does that sound responsible much less sustainable?

Government already wipes our figurative butts for us already- we’re just arguing about how many sheets of toilet paper it’s going to take.

The bigger bugaboo for the politicians and taxpayers has rightly or wrongly been cost. And that’s where shipping whatever isn’t usable to a central location –even if it’s to await the day when it has value if that’s what Mikulina is suggesting- is certainly a more economically viable alternative than paying the amount we pay now all else being equal. And if it’s efficiently coordinated statewide it is more environmentally sustainable and less damaging too.

The Article states that “(t)he plan assumes the cost to ship trash to the mainland will be between $70 and $75 per ton”, which is about the current “tipping fee” on Kaua`i- the amount paid to dump stuff at the dump. But that figure is widely admitted to be a low-end cost underestimate used for many years by our befuddled Pubic Works Department to charge commercial haulers.

Most estimates for actual costs are well over a hundred- $135 has recently been used in council discussions. And those estimates don’t count the costs of transport to the landfill site even before the price of oil went through the roof, nor things like the capital improvement costs to site, construct, monitor and close a new landfill (and keep an eye on it for the required 30 years after closing), estimated at $35-50 million or more just to open it... which also doesn’t include things like the recent half-a-million-dollar bribe for Kekaha to not complain about the current dump being there.

Oh and by the way, despite repeated requests and promises by the Council and administrations ever since Ray Chuan’s day the new Beck report does not evaluate the “shipping it out” option and it’s dismissed as unviable without any detailed examination.

The myriad hidden costs of landfilling aside, what Mikulina, Curtis and Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura have always tried do is argue is that shipping it back would be done in lieu of a zero-waste plan- or even the “good-enough” Beck approach- with no recycling, no diversion and no other plan other than bringing it to the docks and waving bye-bye.

It has been impossible to have a rational discussion of the matter because of these kinds of disingenuous arguments for many years, where they go back and forth between the straw men of the cost and responsibility that they created out of whole cloth.

The oddest thing is that even in Honolulu shipping it back is seen as a “temporary solution” although no one has ever addressed why that is. Is it because their whole system is unsustainable to begin with or something to do with the concept? We don’t know because no one will say but wonder if it could be because there are thousands of government jobs at stake in dealing with the trash inefficiently in burning and burying it after it’s picked up?

Mikulina, Curtis and Yukimura would all agree that our consumerist mainland-style lifestyle through the use of the products physically delivered here is essentially unsustainable all by itself. Yet those goods comprise most of what we need to “do something with” after we’ve taken out what we can use and re-use and they came from across the ocean in the first place.

If we’re thinking about sustainability how is it sustainable to keep importing and burying our “stuff” when we’re done with it? To take care of the rear end by burying it is the height of irresponsibility because if the front end is dealt with sustainably there would be no rear end to deal with.

To use the analogy we seem to rely upon way too often in “Ready-Fire-Aim” Hawai`i and Kaua`i, it’s the old story about people too busy taking the bodies out of the river- and in this case burying them- to go upstream and try to stop whomever is throwing the bodies in.

We’d certainly welcome hearing how keeping it here is more “responsible” or even “lower cost” (when all cost factors are factored in) then sending it back but all we’ve ever heard is skewed numbers and vague generalities- and that’s been going on for at least 20 years here on Kaua`i.

We’re talking the last remains of the day- that gook or even the ashes after burning it- and what we’re going to do with it. Sweep it under the rug or ship it back where it came from are the choices. From that perspective the “responsible” option should be clear.

ANOTHER BLOW TO THE UNDERDOG

ANOTHER BLOW TO THE UNDERDOG: It’s one step forward a thousand paces back in the battle to get the Kaua`i Councty Council to follow the sunshine and open records laws again after the ray of light appeared on the agenda last month, only to be ignored by the Council last week, even now that they have seemingly acknowledged their criminal activity.

The Council has begun citing on the appropriate agenda items, section 3.07 of the Kaua`i County Charter which restricts their secret executive sessions (ES) to those regarding “claims”.

After almost a year of hounding by the last man standing- the amazingly accurate and informed Coach Glenn Mickens- the council has admitted that whenever they kick everyone out of the room it has to be for “claims” and claims only – a term well described in Charter Section 23.06.

As we described previously, some meetings back a few council members including JoAnn Yukimura and Jay Furfaro pointed to that week’s scheduled ES agenda items and claimed that they were all “claims” as the word “claim” appeared in the agenda item. Whether they were claims or not was debatable but the fact that they were acknowledging the controlling legal nature of the provisions (due to HRS 92-71 that gives more restrictive local laws regarding closed meetings precedence over the Sunshine law) was seen as a major victory for Mickens and fellow council-watcher Ken Taylor.

This past week they seemingly didn’t care again other than to list “3.07” on the agenda item- along with a laundry list of state provisions that would ordinarily make their secret confabs legal but are superceded by 3.07- but without mention of a specific “claim” in the agenda item

There is supposedly, and admittedly according to some councilmembers, another of those secret County Attorney’s opinions floating around on the matter but each of them- including councilman Tim Bynum who bitterly complained to the newspaper about these secret CA public policy opinions- voted to go ahead into ES.

Well, another week, another illegal meeting- which by the way caries criminal penalties under HRS92-12.

Here’s Glenn’s testimony. presumably once again written with the help of a certain well-know North Shore attorney who has written about it in his column in the local paper.

And by the way the only response to his testimony was the usual “Thank you Glenn” followed by a unanimous vote to hold the session in private.


To: All Council Members
Glenn Mickens’ Testimony 5/28/08
Re: Executive Sessions

At the May 14th county council meeting I repeated my concern that Charter Section 3.07 E specifically required that council meetings be open to the public except for “consultations with the County Attorney on claims.” After Ken Taylor supported my statement, Council member Yukimura stated that she believed that the six executive sessions noticed for that day were in compliance with Section 3.07 E because lawsuits and arbitrations involve claims. Isn’t it wonderful that after ten months somebody on the council at least offers some explanation fragile though it may be?. Then the chair stated I had asked for justifications for the executive sessions and now I had been told but I would not listen.

The one size fits all comment by the council member was far too simplistic. All lawsuits involve disputes but they may or may not involve claims. The County understands the meaning of the term “claims”. Charter Section 23.06 refers to them. The agenda for the May 14th meeting included four of them. The Sunshine law provides that its provisions for exceptions to the open meeting requirements shall be strictly construed against closed meetings. Does your County Attorney believe he can defend the notion that any dispute justifies an executive session? I remember very well the lawsuit filed by the county challenging the Ohana Kauai property tax proposal. The Council held several executive sessions about that case. The issue of that lawsuit was the validity of the charter amendment. But the Ohana group made no claim against the county and the county made no claim against the Ohana group. Were they valid executive sessions? I

When the council seeks an executive session as to a lawsuit or arbitration the notice of the session should state the nature of the claim involved. None of the executive sessions noticed for the May 14th meeting did this and neither of the executive sessions for this meeting did. If the notice fails to mention a claim how can the executive session be in compliance with Section 3.07E?

Section 3.07E also requires where there is a consultation that it be with the County Attorney. In only one of the six executive sessions on May 14th did the notice state that there would be a consultation with the county Attorney. One of the executive sessions did not even state that any consultation with legal counsel would occur. Neither executive session noticed for this meeting mentions the county attorney.

The Sunshine law declares that it is the policy of the state that governmental affairs shall be conducted as openly as possible. I applaud the statement of Council member Bynum reported in TGI last Sunday that it is extremely important for the county to do everything possible to promote openness. Consistent with his purpose a charter amendment (article 23.08) has been proposed to the Charter Review Commission to make a county attorney’s opinion available within two days after an executive session. The practices of this council in unnecessarily cloaking many of its discussions in secret and preventing the release of legal opinions are offensive to the people of the county and their right to know how we are governed.

I do not seek to have the Council refrain from holding executive sessions. I have been urging that in keeping with both the Sunshine law and Section 3.07 E executive sessions should only be held where the notice given and the consultation to be held meet the requirements of law. I remain of the view that many have not.

If it is your desire to serve our citizens and not to hide from them please examine your actions and resolve to be more open and in better compliance with the spirit and letter of the law in the conduct of your affairs.

NEW DOG ON THE BLOCK

NEW DOG ON THE BLOCK: Good gawd, everybody run- Katy Rose has a gun... in the form of her new blog Breaking the Spell.

And she’s breaking the news that Joe Brescia's house construction is beginning in the morning atop the cemetery at Naue in Ha`ena

Ka`iulani Edens Huff, who has been occupying her ancestral burial ground, hopes to have anyone who can make it help her in turning back the bulldozers. It’ll be interesting to see how many cops show up and what attire they’ll be wearing. Knowing Ka`iulani and Katy we’re sure that the civil disobedience- if there is any- will be peaceful. We’ll see whether there will be a peaceful response from Darryl Perry’s overreactive KPD

BLEATER OF THE PACK

BLEATER OF THE PACK: There’s plenty of grist for the mill again today and apparently Kaua`i Police Chief Darryl Perry is still doing his best to not only fiddle while his Roman Centurions burn-out but claims the flames are actually nothing but maliciously-placed pieces of deceptively-decorated construction paper, with another tone-deaf head-scratcher in his weekly newspaper column “Ask the Chief”- presumably subtitled “But don’t expect a direct answer or for me to pick anything but the fluffiest of all fluff questions”.

In a week where, laid end to end, the criticisms of Perry and his Department would reach the long way from Ke`e to Polihale, da Chief chose to answer this questions- and we couldn’t make this up:.

“Boy, you and KPD have been getting blasted in The Garden Island by Juan Wilson, an opinion columnist. You seem to be doing a good job from the guys I talk to and there hasn’t been bad news in the paper since you took over. What’s going on?”

Well maybe we could- he could have found someone to ask “Chief it must be hard to sit at the right hand of God. Do you ever get tired of being right all the time and soooo perfect? How can we end all these insidious and subversive lies and ignorant condemnations of you and your department from naive fools and natural-born criminals?

And here’s the chief’s actual answer:

I really don’t know why the animosity or undue criticism. Perhaps the honeymoon is over, or perhaps it’s just misinformation, personal attitudes, bad past experiences or just wanting to bring things to my attention. Perhaps it’s a combination of all of the above. Either way, I don’t let personal feelings sidetrack me or KPD from our primary mission. But it saddens me to think that there are people, albeit a few, that would attempt to malign the good we’re trying to accomplish.

Oh that’s right, Darryl- we forgot that everything you do is faultless by definition and that anyone daring to questions anything you do is a miscreant and so their questions are always “undue criticism”. Why answer any questions when you can claim that they all stem from “misinformation, personal attitudes (and) bad past experiences”.

He then says:

Don’t get me wrong, I welcome public input, but in some cases, these types of comments are inappropriate and reckless. And although it does take time and energy away from working on more important issues, I still have to react to them because the public might believe some of the half-truths.

So if the Chief does “welcome public input”, where are the answers to the questions that aren’t “inappropriate and reckless”?

Is it true that there are myriad concerned of citizens out there who are making specific inquiries and are disturbed about publicly-reported charges of abuses of power, a lack of community-policing policies and who want to publicly discuss the necessity for purchase and protocols for use of tasers and riot gear?

Or is it just that Perry treats all comments and criticisms as “half-truths” that waste his “time and energy”?

It’s now gotten to the point where the lack of attention to the community’s trepidation over actual policing, process and departmental issues might no longer be the main issue. Concerns are now centering on the complete stonewalling of all comments regarding the force’s activities and policies.

We haven’t seen the Chief address any issue in anything resembling a straightforward way. Not once. All we hear is pooh-poohing, if we hear anything at all other than a declination to comment.

And when the Mission Statement is revised- as it again appears it has been according to their web site today- it is an “inside job” without any community input, perhaps in violation of state law, unless Perry has a specific ruling or opinion to the contrary.

Given the Chief’s persistent attitude how can we feel that, as required by law, we have any civilian control over our police force at all?

One of the issues that started this whole thing was the Chief’s apparent ignorance regarding the issue of use of tasers. He still apparently clings to the taser industry’s “are you going to believe us or your lyin’ eyes” assertions of non-lethality. We next expect their trade organization to claim they’re providing free shock-treatments to the mentally ill who routinely get zapped.

And Perry refuses to discuss the shift of protocol for use of tasers from “in lieu of deadly force” as originally sold, to using them “in lieu of coercive force”.

While the Chief may dismiss any discussion of this with a waive of his insularity wand he seems to be living in a dream world nonetheless and this article from Canada (thanks to Larry Geller for the directional arrow) shows again what happens when police get stun-happy, this time on an 82- year-old bedridden hospital patient who wouldn’t let go of a knife he was holding but not reportedly brandishing.

RCMP subdue hospitalized man, 82, with Taser

An elderly man in Kamloops, B.C., was zapped three times on the torso by a police stun gun while lying on his hospital bed, CBC News has learned.

Frank Lasser, 82, appeared fragile Thursday when he showed the Taser marks on his body and talked about the ordeal he went through Saturday.

"They [police] should have known I had bypass surgery," Lasser told CBC News.

Lasser has had heart surgery and needs to carry an apparatus to supply oxygen at all times. He was in the Royal Inland Hospital Saturday due to pneumonia but has since been released...

"I was laying on the bed by then and the corporal came in, or the sergeant, I forget which it was, and said to the guys, 'OK, get him
because we got more important work to do on the street tonight,'" Lasser said.

"And then, bang, bang, bang, three times with the laser, and
I tell you, I never want that again."

Kamloops RCMP said Thursday that officers had no other option but to deploy the conducted energy weapon when Lasser refused to drop his knife.

Canadian officials have been debating the use of tasers in recent weeks, some with an eye to banning them.

But an incident like that could never happen here despite multiple recent allegations including reported incidents of vice officers breaking down doors yelling to the innocent-until-proven-guilty and even mistaken-identity victims cringing on the floor with guns to their heads, “you have no rights- you’re a drug dealer”.

But none of our boys would never tase someone just for the heck of it or because they were late for their coffee break.

So tell us Darryl- just how does the community stand up and say (warning: humorist handbook mandatory reference) “bad cop, no donut” when were told that every complaint is presumed to be the result of an “attempt to malign the good we’re trying to accomplish.” and stonewalling is the order of the day, every day.

Let’s be surreptitious out there.

And speaking of the good they’re trying to accomplish, just what is that good and what are they actually doing?

When we criticized the unyielding obstinacy of the bad apples in the barrel and Perry’s apparent lip-service to “eventually” rooting out the corruption, we learned that a top priority for the Chief was to form an Internal Affairs (IA) Division, a quasi-separate internal division traditionally and ubiquitously used by PDs to investigate and if necessary sanction their own.

But during the discussion just prior to passage of the budgets and tax rate by the County Council at last Wednesday’s meeting, Councilman Ron Kouchi was speaking about budgeting choices and said “we talked to the Police Department about doing an internal affairs bureau but instead the determination was for some assistance on the clerical end.”

So was the department given a choice to either fund clerical positions or an IA division and chose the extra clerks? And if it was the Mayor or Council and not the Chief that made the decision, where was the protest from Perry?

Yet Darryl The Naked Emperor and Tom Tom The Clown Prince Commissioner continue to talk about their new IA Division that is now apparently at least another 13 months away from reality.

The problem is no longer just the tasers, the abuses of power; the “us vs. them” attitude, the lack transparency and adherence to state open records laws or the alarm caused by over-militarization of the department without sufficient civilian oversight and consultation.

It’s the fully tone-deaf nature of the who-the-heck-are-you-to-criticize-me tirades from the leadership of the Department and the Baptiste Administration’s and councilmembers’ complicitous silence and their seeming penchant for living in a state of denial regarding those pesky flames are lapping up against the walls of gleaming new Ka`ana St. KPD fortress.

But the Chief just sits in his office figuratively sipping ice-cold drinks and turning up the air-conditioning, asking “is it getting a little hot in here or is it me?”.

As usual, it’s a little o’ both Chief.